Failures, Pivots, and Adaptations#
No innovation journey is without missteps, and VERSO was no exception. Building an Open Source Program Office in an academic setting meant navigating uncharted territory including cultural resistance, resource constraints, and the unpredictability of institutional change. This chapter documents VERSO’s early challenges, strategic pivots, and the lessons learned that shaped the organization’s resilience and adaptability.
Early Missteps and Course Corrections#
Overestimating Community Awareness#
One of our earliest challenges was a fundamental misunderstanding of the problem space. Within the first couple of months, we completed a survey of faculty and staff about open source and discovered that even those who actively contributed to open-source projects did not understand what open source was or identify as contributors. Over 90% were unfamiliar with the term. Rather than operating as an open-source community supporter, it became clear we needed to build a community from scratch—a challenge that proved more acute at a smaller rural university than at OSPOs at larger, more research-intensive institutions.
Mitigation: We shifted our focus from community support to community building, developing foundational educational content and beginner-friendly entry points rather than assuming existing expertise. This reframing guided our entire educational strategy going forward.
Technology Misalignment#
We initially assumed the need to establish an enterprise GitHub instance, only to discover UVM already had a functional GitLab infrastructure managed by IT. This early misalignment cost time and resources, and delayed our operational launch.
Mitigation: We conducted a thorough institutional technology audit and coordinated closely with IT from the start, ensuring alignment with existing systems rather than duplicating infrastructure. This approach has remained central to our technology strategy and prevented similar misalignment issues.
Staffing Pivots#
While we originally anticipated hiring a Community Manager, given the lack of an existing open-source community at the start, we pivoted to hiring Dr. John Meluso as a postdoctoral fellow to support the program. Dr. Meluso’s background in the OCEAN program (a Google-funded research initiative on open source) proved invaluable in bringing research rigor and perspective to VERSO’s foundation.
Mitigation: We remained flexible with hiring decisions, recognizing that organizational needs evolve as context becomes clearer. This willingness to pivot staffing based on actual community conditions rather than initial assumptions served us well throughout VERSO’s growth.
Failed Early Initiatives#
In our first year, we explored creating a podcast (two episodes recorded), producing YouTube videos (never published), and establishing community awards—initiatives that consumed resources without generating meaningful impact. After VERSO’s research partner OCEAN lost Google funding after one year, and as the Director lacked PhD and research training to sustain that component independently, focus on open-source research diminished.
Mitigation: We adopted a more rigorous project evaluation framework, focusing on initiatives with clear stakeholders and sustainable funding models. This led to the successful NSF-funded Interdisciplinary Open Practices Workshop (October 2023), which delivered tangible research and community value, demonstrating the importance of aligning new initiatives with institutional capacity and funding availability.
The Capacity Problem and ORCA Evolution#
Interviews with researchers revealed that even among those committed to open-science practices, lack of time, capacity, and institutional incentives greatly hindered successful implementation. This capacity gap was a fundamental barrier to adoption across the university.
Rather than positioning open source as additional work for researchers, we created the Open Research Community Accelerator (ORCA) student internship program to provide the human capacity researchers lacked. The original concept was to have students handle documentation, code comments, and other foundational tasks for open-source projects.
However, our first ORCA project—rebuilding research software for which only the executable remained—revealed critical insights. A team of five students quickly discovered that sustainable open-source projects require the architecture, project management processes, and quality assurance frameworks of a small development consulting company. Additionally, we learned that many researchers were hesitant to entrust their code to undergraduates. This led to a crucial pivot: rather than supporting existing researcher code, we would build new applications for non-programming researchers, leveraging student skills to create tools addressing real community needs.
Mitigation: We developed a more structured project management framework, established clear governance and documentation practices, and built stronger partnerships with faculty who could mentor students while researchers focused on domain expertise. This professionalization of the ORCA program increased success rates dramatically—by 2024, student participants had grown from 5 to 25, with 72% retention rates and demonstrated career outcomes in open-source-related fields.
From Research Software to Community Projects#
When a graduate student at the Vermont Complex Systems Center approached VERSO about the Vermont Zoning Atlas—a project that had stalled after volunteer contributions slowed—we saw an opportunity to test ORCA’s capacity on a non-research problem. An anonymous donation enabled student hiring to accelerate work. Rather than a traditional software development challenge, this was fundamentally a data problem requiring version control and geospatial expertise. We partnered with the agricultural program (which had geospatial focus) rather than the CS program to find appropriate students.
This project proved the viability of VERSO’s pivot toward non-research projects and demonstrated that VERSO’s model transcended research software support. Of VERSO’s current portfolio, only two projects are research software, while the majority are community tools, data collection/visualization, and infrastructure projects serving real institutional and regional needs—addressing municipal planning, environmental management, and economic development.
Mitigation: We developed multi-disciplinary recruitment strategies and built partnerships across colleges, recognizing that open-source skills could come from diverse academic backgrounds depending on project needs. This expanded our talent pipeline and allowed us to match student skills with community problems more effectively.
Scaling Challenges and Solutions#
Resource Constraints#
Demand for VERSO’s services often outpaced our capacity.
Mitigation: We developed a portfolio approach with clear project selection criteria and cultivated departmental liaisons who could extend our reach without proportional increases in core staff.
Cultural Barriers#
Some disciplines were slower to embrace open source due to intellectual property concerns or unfamiliarity with collaborative practices.
Mitigation: We developed discipline-specific modules and reframed open source as a way to increase research visibility and meet emerging funding requirements.
Sustainability Concerns#
Supporting growing numbers of projects raised questions about long-term viability after initial funding ended.
Mitigation: We invested in governance frameworks and embedded open-source practices into departmental workflows from the start, increasing institutional buy-in.
Key Lessons Learned#
These experiences taught us that failure is not the opposite of success—it’s part of the process. Our key takeaways include:
Start small and scale strategically. Early wins build credibility and momentum.
Remain flexible with assumptions. Context reveals what’s actually needed.
Tailor solutions to context. What works in one discipline may not work in another.
Address culture, not just technology. Adoption requires changing mindsets as much as workflows.
Embrace opportunistic pivots. Breakthrough projects emerged from organic community needs.
Build capacity through partners. Departmental liaisons and cross-college collaborations extended our reach.
Be transparent about challenges. Sharing what didn’t work builds trust and helps others learn.
By embracing these lessons, VERSO evolved from an ambitious idea into a resilient program—one that continues to adapt as the needs of researchers and the open-source ecosystem change.